


Summer Haze

by Neelh



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Post-Episode: s02e20 Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 05:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6142612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neelh/pseuds/Neelh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And the sky clears like a fading mirage; the world is rejuvenated and it is clean, once again, like the beginning.</p><p>The trees grow back as the drying moss encrusts itself on the bark, the thick smell of leaves and summer heat replace the stench of decay and sulphur, and the people of Gravity Falls go back to their daily lives.</p><p>And then, you leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Haze

And the sky clears like a fading mirage; the world is rejuvenated and it is clean, once again, like the beginning.

The trees grow back as the drying moss encrusts itself on the bark, the thick smell of leaves and summer heat replace the stench of decay and sulphur, and the people of Gravity Falls go back to their daily lives. Stan is gone for a few terrifying hours, and then he comes back.

And then, you leave.

You were never a part of this world permanently. You get onto a bus, the bus starts up, and you have a hat and a pig to take home with you but mostly the memories of monsters and magic. The road drags away the knowledge of reality, like sweater yarn caught on the branch of a tree, and when your parents greet you, it’s easy to remember the lie of spending all summer fishing with your Grunkle Stan and playing around with Wendy and Soos.

It’s fun to pretend during the daytime that you never saved the world. Like how young children play at being superheroes, you play at being completely ordinary. Which you are, because no matter what happens, you’re still just a kid playing around with your family and sometimes encountering deadly threats that can endanger the entire universe. No biggie.

But sometimes, as September becomes October, and October becomes November, you begin to forget things, like the shade of green in the grass of the magical part of the forest, or Grenda’s favourite perfume, or which gnomes were Norman. And those times, you call Soos and Melody over Scape, and you all talk, and Soos carries his laptop outside so you can look around at the forest and see Gompers engaged in an edible battle against the totem pole that he has never won. Grenda and Candy send you letters and emails filled with stickers and way too many different colours for anyone but you to stand looking at for longer than five seconds.

And in December, you remember your fear to grow up, because you’re getting older every day and Bill lived for countless millennia when you’re only going to see a tiny fraction of one, and her red hair under the blue of Dipper’s old hat is like a familiar blanket, her smile like the moon that looks exactly the same from both Oregon and California. And she tells you that growing up is scary, but that’s life, dude, you can’t just stay in the past. I mean, we grow as people and whatever. Like, Robbie’s acne is really clearing up, and Lee and Nate have finally got together, and Tambry’s got a job to save up for a better phone, and none of that could've happened without growing up, right?

And as the year changes, two to three and you kiss on the strike of twelve because it means good luck, and you need all the luck you can get if you’re going to go back to Gravity Falls. When you get back upstairs to go to sleep, Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford Scape you from a hotel, red-faced and grinning even though it’s only half ten over where they are. And you laugh quietly as your parents do parent stuff like stay up late and watch old murder mysteries on the TV downstairs, while you’re making a blanket fort that is iridescently illuminated by the laptop screen and talking to your two favourite relatives. It’s probably kind of mean to say that, but your parents have never and will never survive the apocalypse with you, punch zombies for you, keep secrets for you, essentially die for you, do everything in their power to protect you.

And during those conversations with Stan and Ford and Wendy and Soos, you remember those moments; those crisp pine tree branches, the cloudless summer skies at night, the warmth of the sun on your cheeks and the sweat from the heat, the knowledge that you know nothing; but you will learn one day, because that’s what you do. Secrets are made to be uncovered, like how the summer heat haze lifts and you see everything clearly.

It’s just as beautiful as you remember.

**Author's Note:**

> tbh this is mostly just practising writing metaphors without extending them like a piece of stretchy blue tack or glue until it gets to thin and weak that it just droops or breaks and it's generally a mess, as you can see.
> 
> (mostly i liked the idea of gravity falls being confused with the heat messing with your head, even though oregon summers are probably just a little bit warmer than england, but i took some artistic license! it's shown that it gets hella hot over there in the episode the deep end!)
> 
> (please punch me)
> 
> (not in the nose, it's taken me a while to get to like that part of my face)
> 
> (thank you for taking the time to read this)
> 
> (if i continue for much longer, the note is going to be longer than the fic)


End file.
